in the current situation, it’s worth listening to this podcast about nuclear near misses.
the cuban missile crisis was only one example, but is worth considering.
in 1962 the united states and russia went eyeball to eyeball over russia’s military base in cuba.
@SBF - excellent video, essential viewing.
It also strikes me as funny when people say 'Putin's gone mad!'. The reality is Putin hasn't changed - it's the media and politicians who never knew the real Putin.
And that's pretty scary. Putin and his colleagues aren't going anywhere.
We've got to deal with him, and by that I mean handle with extreme care.
it's always unjustifiable for a country to attack another country without having first been attacked itself.. the nuremberg trials at the end of wwii made this clear.. more vividly too: following orders as a patriotic duty is never secondary to the pangs of your personal conscience.. .
worst of all, hypocrisy destroys credibility when you.
criticize other countries for doing what you have done.. .
There is no equivalence between Ukraine and Iraq in the sense that what the west did to Iraq was much much worse, and Iraq posed no threat to us. That’s not to “defend” Russia, it’s to point out rank hypocrisy - yes, you're quite right.
The Iraq war (2003) was totally unnecessary, disastrous, and illegal. Saddam Hussein was no threat to the West. Hell, he wasn't even a threat to Kuwait in the early 2000s.
Putin's not stupid - he can probably see this hypocrisy, too.
How the hell can people like Biden and Harris condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine whilst brushing Iraq under the carpet - it's just insane.
it's always unjustifiable for a country to attack another country without having first been attacked itself.. the nuremberg trials at the end of wwii made this clear.. more vividly too: following orders as a patriotic duty is never secondary to the pangs of your personal conscience.. .
worst of all, hypocrisy destroys credibility when you.
criticize other countries for doing what you have done.. .
Let’s look at things from the Russian perspective - yeah, ok, let's do that. But go back further in time to the beginning of the 21st century onwards.
Putin has seen NATO expand further and further into Eastern Europe. He has seen the US put some of its nuclear weapons in non-nuclear NATO member states.
Putin doesn't like this, and over the years has repeatedly tried to raise these issues with the West. However, the West hasn't listened or taken his views seriously.
Why is Putin worried? Well just imagine how Western Europe would feel if Putin gave nuclear weapons to Belarus.
We know how worried JFK was when the USSR put missiles in Cuba.
It's a bit 'double standards' to shit yourself over the Cuban missile crisis then years later dismiss similar concerns from Russia over NATO bases creeping closer and closer to Russia ... don't you think?
BTW, I'm not justifying the Ukraine war. Invading the Ukraine and then shelling the shit out of it is obviously wrong. I'm just doing what you said do - looking at this from a Russian perspective.
Given the above, if you were in Putin’s position, would you start nuclear war now, and almost certainly be incinerated? - no, I wouldn't. But it would be very foolish for Western politicians not to take Putin's threat seriously, or to back him into a corner so much that the nuclear option becomes the only way out for him. Putin is a cold-blooded killer with zero regard for human life. I'm sure he's thought how closely packed Western Europe is (nuking it would be like shooting fish in a barrel). I'm sure he's thought about striking first and wiping out Washington DC, NYC and LA. Putin would have no qualms sacrificing millions and millions of innocent Russians who might get nuked from a retaliatory strike from America. Of course, if Putin ever pressed the big red button, he'd likely go all-in and destroy US cities, and wipe the UK and France off the surface of the planet.
I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that Putin is a Western politician - he's not. Western politicians are leaders, but they have to pose as social workers in order to get elected. Putin doesn't bother with any of that crap - he's one bad bastard.
I also think some people - me included - arrogantly assume that everyone wants to be Westernised. And it's clearly not the case with Putin.
it's always unjustifiable for a country to attack another country without having first been attacked itself.. the nuremberg trials at the end of wwii made this clear.. more vividly too: following orders as a patriotic duty is never secondary to the pangs of your personal conscience.. .
worst of all, hypocrisy destroys credibility when you.
criticize other countries for doing what you have done.. .
Terry
Putin has already said he'd nuke the West if the West gets involved - he's made that quite clear.
There's not much the West can do, apart from giving food, water and shelter to Ukrainian citizens, and giving sanctuary to refugees. That's about it.
The West needs to stop poking its nose into other countries' wars.
I'm sick of Boris Johnson postering on the international stage, claiming to care about Ukraine.
FFS, he's the Prime Minister of the UK, not Ukraine. His top priority is to keep UK citizens safe, healthy and fed.
we seemed to have reached peak cancel-culture.
now, we get to try to cancel the citizens of an entire country for something their government chose to do.. really, we can't allow russian individuals to compete in sports?
to live a life?.
More evidence of cancel culture/virtue-signalling:
Sainsbury's supermarket has rebranded its Chicken Kiev as Chicken Kyiv (the latter is the Ukrainian spelling).
No, I'm not shitting you
lloyd evans has a livestream and must answer all questions.
the only catch.
you can only ask one question plus a follow up.. my fave so far is would you want your daughter to marry a man who was unfaithful every few months with prostitutes.. what would you ask him?.
One question to ask Lloyd Evans - "hey Lloyd, why are you such a c**t?"
Sorry, I couldn't resist
we seemed to have reached peak cancel-culture.
now, we get to try to cancel the citizens of an entire country for something their government chose to do.. really, we can't allow russian individuals to compete in sports?
to live a life?.
Yes Simon - your OP is spot on.
Part of living in the real world is dealing with people you don't necessarily like.
Punishing Russian people for the things Putin is doing is moronic.
Russian athletes are innocent of what is going on in Ukraine in that they're not responsible for it.
And re this current situation in Ukraine, everybody is going to have to get round a table and start peace talks and compromises - with Russia included at the table (i.e. Russia can't be 'cancelled' from such proceedings).
Don't get me wrong, Putin is not a nice human being. But he's not going anywhere and neither are his yes-men colleagues who are also from the Soviet era.
i’m calling it folks, world war 3 looks like it’s a done deal.. belarus has entered ukraine, and nato is involved heavily, just not “boots on the ground”.. will there be a nuclear exchange?
i would have said no 5 days ago, now i’m not so sure.. how will this effect wt?
probably more of the same fear mongering..
It'd put it at 50-50 as to whether Putin presses the big red button.
Putin rules by fear and force.
He invaded Ukraine rather lightly at first, and mainly spared civilians in combat areas. He was hoping that the fear of an invading army would make the Ukrainians wave the white flag.
This didn't work, the Ukrainians have fought back and dug in. So now Putin is bombing indiscriminately, rolling in thermobaric weapons and a 40-mile convoy of tanks. He's now using force, because the initial attempt at using fear didn't work.
Putin has spoken about putting his nuclear weapons into 'combat mode'. He's also said that if the West impedes his military operations, they'll see something they've never seen in their history. This is a clear warning/threat, and an attempt at using fear.
Disturbingly, our politicians have so far dismissed this.
The longer our politicians cock a deaf 'un, the more Putin will consider the other option.
the wt uses phi list ine.
the world says phil is tine.
i remember they had a pronunciation guide devised by a clergyman which is ok in as much as as we dont speak hebrew.
Is it 'philist-EYE-n' or 'philist-EE-n'?
Also, Arabs call the area 'falasTeen' (فلسطين) and they call the wider area of the Levant 'ash-shaam' (الشام).
this question has been presented many times throughout the years.
somewhat recently, there has been much talk surrounding the "bite method" :.
"bite” stands for behavior, information, thought, and emotional control.. some examples were thrown at me, such as the decisions of who we associate with, discouraging any worldy media, encouraging our brothers and sisters to report any of our misbehaviours to the elders, our rejection of criticism on the truth, shunning etc.. what do we think about this?.
Is The Watchtower a cult?
Well, this religion matches quite a few points of what a cult is, from what I remember.
If it walks like a duck ...
